


found my way around (to loving you)

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Flashbacks, Role Reversal, Season/Series 01, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-21 17:12:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8253833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: Jemma nearly dies in Italy. Grant doesn't take it well.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SafelyCapricious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SafelyCapricious/gifts).



> A gift for Mir, who asked for a fic sort of like this nearly a year ago. Better late than never, right?
> 
> A couple notes: There is sex in this but nothing explicit so heads up there. Also, there's a single word of Spanish somewhere down there. If you hover over it, it should translate for you.
> 
> Title from Brandon Heath's "I'm Not Who I Was."

 

“You can’t save someone from themselves, sir.”  
“You can if you get to them early enough.”  
\- AOS 1x05 "The Girl in the Flower Dress"

 

 

Grant’s arms ache from how long he’s been going at the punching bag. If Jemma were here to see, she’d tell him to stop. She might even, depending on whether anyone else was around to see, give him that little smile and tilt her head towards the lab. He’d follow her into the back, through the dark corridors, and to whichever storage pod she chose, and there he’d-

He can’t finish the thought. His mind’s still stuck on the bowels of the Bus, made more crowded recently by the med pod installed directly behind the lab.

Jemma’s not out here to chastise him for ignoring his health because she’s in there, recovering.

And she _is_ recovering. A few weeks ago half her bones were broken and her organs were failing. Now she’s laughing at Skye’s lame jokes and bossing Fitz around. Which is good, means John’ll be fine as soon as he can figure the GH-325 out. Grant should be happy. And yet-

He slams his fist into the punching bag again.

 

+++++

 

When Jemma woke up, a full fifty-two hours after being injected with the GH-325, Grant was there. He sat in a chair he’d dragged in from the lab and watched and waited and saw the moment she started coming awake again.

It was painfully similar to all the other times he’d seen her come awake. Her serene expression shifted into something more lively. Her mouth opened and her hands started to move, like she was so ready to begin the day’s work. He caught her hand to hold it still, not wanting her to hurt herself.

“Jemma.”

Her eyes snapped open, and she pulled away. Immediately her whole body tensed up. She was healing impossibly fast, but with injuries like hers, she still had a long way to go.

“It’s okay,” Grant said. “You were hurt, but you’re gonna be fine, all right? You just have to stay still.”

Her body didn’t move - and he didn’t blame her for that after how she must’ve hurt herself - but her wide eyes did. They took in him and then the unfamiliar interior of the med pod. He cursed himself for not thinking they should move her to the lab.

“It’s okay,” he said again. “You’re on the Bus.”

Her eyes flew to him, and his heart stopped.

Fitz came in then. No doubt he’d been monitoring her vitals from the lab. Grant stepped aside, let him look her over. Jemma’s hand tore from his, but she kept darting him little looks, always with that same expression.

 

+++++

 

“She’s afraid,” Skye says. She’s smart enough to approach from the side, so he can see her coming.

Grant chokes out a harsh laugh. “Yeah, I got that.”

The only time Jemma ever looked at him like that before was in the lab after he was exposed to the berserker staff. But that was months ago, and only a few hours later, she’d… Well, it doesn’t matter. Obviously she isn’t feeling so generous anymore.

Skye steps to the side, so he can better see her roll her eyes. “She’s afraid of losing you, you dork.”

He gives the bag a vicious two-punch. “She can’t even look at me.”

“That’s because she’s a dork too!” Skye says, like it should be obvious. “You’re two dorks in love, it’d be adorable if you weren’t so dumb about it.”

Grant catches the punching bag against his shoulder, absorbing its momentum with his body. “We’re not-” he starts. The hesitation is all for his cover, but the croak in his voice, that’s real. They’re just messing around. He gives her orgasms, and she gives him a stress relief method that doesn’t involve hitting things. That’s all.

Skye steps closer and softly says, “I didn’t tell Coulson - most of it was just gibberish, but … she said some stuff, before you got there.”

“What kind of stuff?” Grant demands.

“She told me to keep Fitz from- from going somewhere.” She glances over her shoulder into the lab, but Fitz isn’t there. He’s with Jemma. “But she talked about you too. She sounded scared, like she wanted me to warn you. I think she was afraid of you getting hurt.”

He should be glad. If Jemma’s so far gone on him that her last words - words said when she was literally dying - were about him, he’s definitely won her over. Mission accomplished there.

But he’s not glad.

He turns his attention back to the bag. “Yeah, well. Now she’s afraid of something else.” Namely, him. It’s been weeks since she woke up and still, every time he goes near her, it’s like she shuts down. She’s barely said ten words to him.

Skye’s hand rests on his arm, stilling his attack. “Maybe you should try talking to her about it.”

 

+++++

 

Grant wasn’t there when Jemma was injured, but he can imagine it well enough. Between Skye’s report and his own knowledge of the situation and the people involved, he can paint a pretty clear mental picture.

He didn’t hear her begging Skye not to go into Quinn’s villa, but he knows Jemma’s voice, knows how it goes high and thin when she worries about the team. He knows the way her hands feel when she knows she can’t hold a person back from danger but wishes she could.

He didn’t see Quinn holding a gun on Skye, or Jemma shooting him in the back with the night-night gun. The night-night gun he’d tucked into her bag before they all left the Bus that morning. The one he told her not to touch unless things went sideways.

He didn’t get a good look at Peterson fleeing the scene, but he saw enough of the modifications John’s doctors have made to him. He can see what it must’ve been like when Peterson’s hand closed around Jemma’s throat, when he lifted her from the ground and slammed her into the stone wall.

And again.

And again.

He can imagine her expression going dazed, her hands dropping their grip on his arm as her body went limp. He can even hear the sound her broken body might’ve made when he dropped her carelessly to the floor.

But he doesn’t have to imagine Skye holding her, cradling her head in her lap and screaming for help. He saw that with his own two eyes. He doesn’t know that he’ll ever forget it.

 

+++++

 

Grant might be a coward. He hasn’t thought of himself that way since he was a scared kid doing Christian’s bidding to escape a beating, but sitting on the floor outside the med pod, he thinks he really might be. He can’t go in.

He’s tried and he’s tried, but the best he can manage is sitting out here like the idiot Skye said he was, listening to the machines monitoring Jemma’s vitals. He’s been out here so long she’s gone to sleep, and still he can’t force himself up even to leave.

He’s pathetic.

“Hey.” Fitz bends awkwardly to keep beneath the windows and joins him. He hands him a Taco Bell bag. “Skye made a dinner run.”

Grant’s taste buds cringe, but his stomach’s handled worse. “Thanks. She’s asleep.”

“Yeah, figured. Not much to keep her awake when Coulson won’t let her leave the pod.”

Coulson’s worried. Grant doesn’t know why, he only knows something the man saw in that base spooked him. Bad. Bad enough he tried to stop Trip giving Jemma the injection.

Grant should probably be figuring out what that is so he can give John the heads up, but there’s part of him that doesn’t want to know. Turns out he’s a coward all around.

“I’m sorry,” Fitz says into the quiet, his voice barely audible under the sound of Jemma’s heart monitor. “For what I said in Italy. I didn’t know.” He sighs. “I didn’t want to know. So I’m sorry.”

This is good. Really good. Back in Italy Grant was in danger of losing Fitz. The things he said, the things he’d figured out … the trust was gone. So this right here is good. Grant doesn’t know why he goes trying to ruin it by saying, “It’s not like that.”

He said the same thing on the train, only this time Fitz’s reaction is decidedly warmer. “Yeah,” he says, “that’s why you’re sitting on the cold floor at eleven at night. Because it’s not like that.”

Fitz unfolds his legs from under himself and wakes the tablet he brought with him. He works while Grant tries not to let his words get to him.

 

+++++

 

Coulson paired Grant with Fitz in Italy. They were supposed to be friends or boyfriends or something, Grant was never really sure.

“Everyone doing okay?” Coulson asked over the comms once the train was moving. He and May were in one of the sleeper cars. They for sure were pretending to be a couple, and their location gave them the freedom to speak openly and coordinate with the rest of them.

“It’s a beautiful view,” Fitz and Simmons said at the same time. The all clear sign.

“All right. Skye? Simmons? You know what to do. Ward and Fitz? Sit tight, wait for the security team to make their move.”

“It really is,” Grant said. Skye was a beat behind him, adding an extra “really” to hers.

“I wish I could take some pictures,” Fitz said, which wasn’t a code for anything. He pulled out his cell. “But my camera’s been acting up. Maybe if I do a restart, you think?” He flashed the screen towards Grant, showing him the comms controls.

“Yeah,” Grant said. “If you can stand to go dark for the whole minute it’ll take.” He put a little emphasis on the “go dark” and Coulson picked up on it right away.

“Don’t stay off comms too long.”

Not even a second after the background noise from Skye and Simmons’ car cropped out, Fitz asked, “Are you in love with Simmons?”

Grant nearly choked. “What- Why would you-” So much for the boyfriends cover.

Fitz fiddled with his phone, not doing anything, just keeping his hands busy. “I’ve known about you two since LA.”

Since there hadn’t been a them the first time the team was in LA, Grant guessed he meant when Coulson was captured. He probably should’ve figured. Simmons had been surprisingly good at keeping their fling under wraps, but after he was shot on that bridge, her worry got the best of her.

“I don’t know what you think you know,” Grant said, “but Simmons and I-”

“Are sleeping together,” Fitz cut in dryly. “I’ve got fifty IQ points on you, Ward, don’t insult me. Do you love her?”

Grant looked out the window. He knew what Fitz wanted to hear. Fitz was half in love with Simmons himself, but he was a decent enough guy he’d be happy for her if he thought she was happy. But Grant couldn’t give him what he wanted. This wasn’t some mission he was gonna walk away from. Even after he was done with the team, he’d still be a SHIELD agent. A hopeless infatuation with one of SHIELD’s brightest wasn’t the kind of thing he wanted to have on his record.

“It’s not like that,” he said carefully.

Fitz made an angry noise and turned his phone over. “Yeah. Just don’t hurt her, okay?”

The comms came back to life before Grant could respond, which was good. Stopped him from saying the words that sprung to his lips without a moment’s hesitation: he’d never.

 

+++++

 

A high-pitched whine wakes Grant. It shuts off at almost the same moment, and he’s on his feet, searching for whatever’s wrong. His eyes land on the interior of the med pod. Jemma’s out of bed.

“Hey,” he says gently. He steps inside while she tries to hold herself up. Turning off the heart monitor seems to have taken a lot out of her.

“Grant.” She doesn’t look scared. His heart swoops in relief, but the worry that overtakes her expression stalls his celebration. “You’re- you’re here.”

“Yeah.” He takes a half-step back. “Do you want me to get Skye? Or Fitz?”

She shakes her head so emphatically she has to grip the handle on the side of the bed to keep herself up. “No, no. I want-” She licks her lips. “We’re on leave, aren’t we? Because of me, none of us are up for assignments?”

“Yeah. Coulson wants you to get all the time you need to recover.” The brass do too. Jemma’s one of SHIELD’s brightest minds and they almost lost her. They’re giving her plenty of time to get back into fighting shape. Or whatever.

She nods to herself. “All right. Good. We can- Can we go?”

He moves farther inside, nearly far enough to touch her. “You wanna go up to the lounge?” She’s leaning so heavily on the bed, there’s no way she can take the stairs. “I could carry you.”

She shakes her head again, only a little bit this time. “No. I mean us. Can we go? Leave the Bus?”

It’s a shock. He’s never so completely misread someone, but maybe Jemma really wasn’t scared of him at all. Maybe it’s fear of something else entirely.

“Okay,” he says. “Yeah. I’ll talk to Coulson. Anywhere in particular you wanna go?”

“Yes,” she says, but it’s quiet. “But I’d like to get off the Bus, first.”

A change of scenery is first on the list, then. Not all that surprising after what she’s been through. First time he nearly died for SHIELD, he had a little trouble walking back into the Hub like nothing had happened.

He’s got resources. The trip to wherever it is she wants to go - he’s guessing England to see her folks, but she’s full of surprises lately so he wouldn’t lay money on it - won’t be as nice as on the Bus, but he’s got favors he can call in to take her anywhere in the world.

“All right. I’ll handle it. You want anything special from your bunk?”

“Shoes,” she says, looking to her bare feet. Skye’s brought her sweats and PJs to wear through her recovery, but no shoes. “And there’s an emergency evac bag under my bed, it has clothes and necessities.”

He smiles, impressed. “Okay. I’ll be right back. Why don’t you sit and wait for me?” She’s only still standing because she’s got the bed to hold onto, and he’d rather not come back down to find her passed out on the floor.

He hurries up the ladder at the back of the cargo hold. It leads straight up to the bunks, saving him time and explanations he’d have to give if he went through the lab. He’s got his own emergency bag in his bunk, and it only takes him a few seconds to find Jemma’s. Both he drops at the foot of the stairs leading to Coulson’s office and he stops right next to them. 

All told, it’s probably been less than two minutes since he left her. What is he _doing_? 

A few emotional pleas, a look that isn’t tinged with terror, and that’s all it takes for him to promise he can get Coulson to release her from bed rest?

This isn’t the plan. Grant Ward, agent of SHIELD, does not take his fuck buddy on emotionally restorative vacations. He doesn’t go begging his commanding officer - who can’t be all that happy about the relationship to begin with - to let him take his injured teammate off the Bus and away from the safety of SHIELD.

But if he gets her away, if it’s just the two of them, he can watch her for signs of whatever it is Coulson fears will happen. Even though his gut churns at the prospect, he’s gotta admit it’s a good opportunity. So he makes his feet move up the stairs and he forces his mouth to ask. He even dresses up the request, playing up how freaked Jemma’s been.

Coulson smiles in that knowing way of his, and his mouth is half-open when the screen on the wall beeps with an incoming call. Their eyes meet. So much for being on leave.

Coulson’s hand hovers over the button to answer and then moves back to the arm of his chair while the monitor still beeps out its annoying little chime. “I’m in the bathroom,” he says. “It’s gonna take me at least another five minutes to answer this call and find out that I need my entire team for whatever mission’s so important they’d pull us back into the thick of it.” He stands, apparently intent on actually going to the bathroom for the sake of the charade. “The call ’ll probably take another five minutes, maybe ten if I’m feeling particularly chatty. Which means my biochemist and specialist have fifteen minutes tops to get off the Bus and on the road.”

“Thank you, sir,” Grant says and hurries out the door.

“Don’t forget to disable the van’s communication system,” Coulson calls after him.

Grant shoulders the bags and jogs across the lounge, planning on readying the van before going back for Jemma. Only it turns out he doesn’t have to because she’s in the lab. And even though Fitz and Skye are standing with her, he gets the idea - from the sweat on her forehead and how pale she is - that she walked in there herself.

“I told you to stay in the med pod,” he calls through the doors before turning to the van. He tosses their bags in the back and pops the hood to cut the line from the communications panel to the battery.

“I didn’t-”

He throws her another look, worried now that she really did overexert herself.

“Jeez, Ward,” Skye snaps, “your girlfriend wanted to get out of the box she nearly died in, can you blame her?” There’s enough good humor in her tone to lighten the words, and Jemma looks genuinely pleased by the defense, so Grant doesn’t even bother arguing on the girlfriend comment. Mostly because anything he said would be belied by what he does next.

No way in hell is he letting Jemma push herself - or wasting the time it would take her to walk thirty feet - so he marches into the lab and scoops her up in his arms. She goes stiff as he swings her around, and there’s this split second where he remembers how traumatized she was when she woke up in midair, but then she relaxes against him. The worry that’s been wrapped around his heart for weeks eases a little when she rests her head on his shoulder.

“We’re going on vacation,” Grant announces over Skye’s aww-ing. His gaze settles on Fiz. “Try not to call.”

Fitz smirks. More likely than not, he’s seen they’ve got a message coming in and he’s sure to want Jemma out of whatever it’s about as much as Grant does.

“Yeah, don’t send pictures,” he says.

“Fitz,” Jemma sighs.

“Take care of her.”

“Always do,” Grant says cheekily and hurries for the van. He slows quickly though, as Jemma stiffens up again. Fitz and Skye follow to unclasp the braces that hold the van in place when it’s parked.

“I can buckle myself,” she says when he does it for her.

He ignores her and goes around to the driver’s side. “Ready?” he asks as he climbs in.

She looks oddly pensive for someone who was begging him to take her away just a few minutes ago. “Yes,” she says finally. “Yes. Let’s go.”

“You’re the boss.” He throws the van in gear and backs them off the Bus. He thinks he might be able to hear May’s voice over the intercom, calling everyone to the briefing room as he pulls away, but he doesn’t pay it any mind.

 

+++++

 

After the team rescued Coulson from Centipede, he used SHIELD’s credit card to put them all up in a hotel. One far, far away from the dingy, old warehouse they’d pulled him from on the coast of Massachusetts.

Grant didn’t even have to feign how thankful he was for that - which was good because he wasn’t up to feigning much. John had been _so close_. If the team had taken just a little longer to find Coulson, maybe he would’ve given up everything they needed.

And maybe, if they’d taken a little longer, Coulson would’ve been dead. There was always that possibility.

The kidnapping and torture were necessary, part of the job. Grant’d known that since the beginning. He didn’t know why he kept wishing he’d found a way to talk Coulson around sooner.

He shook himself from those thoughts for the tenth time tonight and considered stopping by Simmons’ room. A hotel was the perfect place to get in a few rounds with her - no danger of the others walking in and no uncomfortable storage pod shelves. (Though he did like holding her against the door, solved both problems at once.) But mood he was in, he wasn’t sure it was the best idea. He wasn’t up for keeping his cover, even for a fuck.

He passed her room by and turned the corner onto his own hall. And there she was, like she’d known just what he was thinking. She was still wearing that look, the worried one she’d been wearing ever since he woke up to see her kneeling over him on the bridge, but relief lightened it when she saw him coming.

She waited for him to meet her at the door, then closed the distance between them by taking his splinted hand.

“I’m not sure-” he started, fighting with himself as much as with his words. Bad an idea as it was, he wanted to take her inside.

She nodded, her expression pained. God, she actually looked like she might cry. Her fingers slid up the inside of his arm.

He cupped her cheek in his uninjured hand without thinking. “Jemma,” he said, and her head tipped into his palm as her eyes fell shut. “Were you hurt?”

She shook her head but not far enough to force him to break his hold. “Tell me to go,” she said. “Tell me this doesn’t mean anything. Tell me I shouldn’t worry about you.”

His thumb slid along her cheekbone. “You were worried about me? Jemma, I’m  _fine_ , just a little banged up. Coulson was the one who-”

She laughed, one horrible, pained breath of laughter that opened her eyes and lifted her head back up. “I know. How silly is that? That I was more worried about you when-”

He kissed her. He should’ve let her go and he knew it. He knew it even as she fell into him and he keyed open the door. It didn’t stop him though. Because with all the shit that had been piled onto him that day - Coulson and John and having to go back to fucking Massachusetts - he wanted to hold onto this, onto the knowledge of there being one person in the whole damn world who cared about him.

 

+++++

 

He’s wrong, Jemma doesn’t want to go to England. She wants to go to Puerto Rico.

Whenever he asks why, she refuses to say, and it turns out he’s too much of a soft touch to press her when she’s still looking so fragile.

They take a commercial flight down, and he books them a room at a little hotel in San Juan where the manager thinks they’re newlyweds even before Grant carries her up to their room. He’s grateful, as the guy fawns over them, that languages have never been one of Jemma’s fields; her reaction to that isn’t one he wants to see.

She doesn’t even try to sit up in the bed once he sets her down. “Where are you going?” she asks, catching his hand. He hates how weak her grip is.

“The floor,” he says. “You can spread out.”

“Grant,” she says sternly.

He kneels down next to the bed and kisses her fingers. “You’re in no shape for sex.”

“I’ve been sleeping alone for weeks. I’d like to sleep next to my _esposo_ , thank you.”

He groans. But it’s worth it because she laughs.

She rolls onto her side to cup his cheek in her free hand. “Please. I don’t want to be alone here.”

The _here_ makes him wonder - was it random or did something in particular bring her to San Juan? - but the _please_ has him giving in.

He strips down to his boxers and helps her sit up so she can change. When her shirt comes off, his heart stops. She’s whole, but she’s not healed yet. Her skin is marbled in the yellows and greens of fading bruises, even this many weeks after.

She balls up her shirt in her lap. “It could be worse,” she says with a small shrug.

“It was,” he says heavily.

She doesn’t have an answer for that and so eases herself up to take off her pants.

Once they’re in bed, she curls into his side right away, laying her ear over his heart and wrapping her arm around his ribs.

He stares down at her, feels how tight she’s holding him, how stiff she is, and he hears Skye’s words again. _She was afraid of you getting hurt._ “I’m fine,” he says, laying his own arm over her back. “I’m right here.”

“Stay,” she says - pleads, really.

He runs his hand up and down her spine - her whole, unbroken spine. “Of course.” He doesn’t know what’s spooked her so bad, but it’s catching. “Of course,” he says again.

 

+++++

 

A wicked smile curved Grant’s lips. It wasn’t the sort of thing he’d typically let himself show around the team, but with the berserker rage still singing in his veins, he didn’t give a damn. And Simmons seemed to be enjoying it. Her heels dug into his lower back, and her wrists twisted beneath his hands, and the sounds she made… No way she wasn’t enjoying it, sounding like that.

But there was this moment, when he could feel the end looming up over him, when he caught her eye. For a fraction of a second, she looked - there really wasn’t any other word for it - horrified.

It took all his will-power to pull his cover back on, to bury his own feelings in the agent of SHIELD. “Did I hurt you?” he asked, voice shaking more from the effort it was taking than real emotion, but he’d take it. “Are you okay?”

She shook her head against the pillow. He released her, leaning back with a wince. She followed, catching his face in her hands.

“No,” she said. Her fingers on his cheek left his nerves buzzing. He was so close to burning up. “No, please. I want to forget.” Her breath fell over his sweat-soaked chest as she buried her face in his neck. “Make me forget.”

His hands found her back, and he started to wonder if maybe it wasn’t just luck that had her loitering outside the hotel bar tonight. “Forget what?” he asked, while in his mind he flashed back to that moment this afternoon when he turned on her. He blew up in the lab, lost control for the first time in years. He’d yelled at all of them - her and Fitz and Skye. He was gonna have some bridges to mend there, but here and now was the time to fix things with Simmons.

She sighed against his skin. “Everything.”

He did.

 

+++++

 

In the morning, she gives him a list. She spends the day in their hotel room, resting and recuperating, while he scavenges San Juan for the supplies she apparently needs. He nearly turns back at least a dozen times to demand why they’re here, what’s so important they had to fly thousands of miles. But he doesn’t go back and he brings her everything she asks for.

He doesn’t know why.

She has him load up their rental car and then directs him to an old fort on the coast. He’s gotta get them past security, which involves knocking heads and sneaking around and just a lot more field work than he expected on his vacation.

Now he knows something’s wrong. The GH-325 hurt her somehow, messed her up. But he still goes along with it, up until she tosses a rope through a hole she’s blown in the ground.

“Jemma,” he says, catching her face in his hands. She’s wearing the cheap coveralls and surgical mask he stole from a hospital, and she’s got her belt clipped to the line like she thinks she’s gonna jump. Which he knows she’s not because this is _Jemma_. She’s afraid of heights. She would never jump into a dark scary hole. “What are we doing here? What’s down there?”

She sighs out a shaky breath. “Everything.” And then she jumps.

 

+++++

 

The warm shower was just what the doctor ordered after the long fall from thirty thousand feet and the time spent bobbing in the Atlantic Ocean, waiting for rescue. Grant took his time with it too. Showers on the Bus were five minutes tops, and while Grant had never been one for overly long showers, the chance to take one without someone pounding on the door was too good to pass up.

So he was surprised, when he came out, to find Simmons still loitering on one of the benches outside. She looked small and fragile in the one-size-fits-all robe they gave her - or maybe that was just him thinking about the last few hours.

She met his eyes as soon as he emerged, and he knew there was something wrong. He’d never seen her looking so distant, so closed-off. It was kinda freaky.

“Simmons?” he asked, hoping if he got her talking - her second favorite activity after being smarter than Fitz - it’d snap her out of it.

But he supposed it was to be expected. She did nearly die today and all. Actually, he thought she might have really died for a minute or two there.

There’d been this moment, in the air after the pulse, when her whole body seized and her eyes opened wide in terror. He’d had to talk her down to keep her from kicking out of his arms and falling to her death all over again. He could still feel the strength of her, how tough it’d been to keep his hold, and the way she’d clung to him shaking afterward.

“Hey,” he said gently, coming closer. He wished the team would get here already, handle the touchy-feely part of this. He could fake it, but not as the emotionally constipated agent of SHIELD he was playing here. Anything he tried to do as that guy was just as likely to send her further over the edge.

Simmons saved him the trouble of fumbling his way through though. Maybe it was his speaking or his coming closer, maybe she’d just reached her limit, but something had her standing and crossing the distance between them in three quick strides. He held himself still, reminding himself Simmons wasn’t a threat - they’d both already been cleared as free of the virus - and she took advantage by pulling him down for a kiss.

It wasn’t nice or tentative. It was exactly as desperate as he’d have guessed if he’d considered this possibility. Which he kind of had, but he’d figured she would just harbor an embarrassing crush on him, one he could hopefully leverage for information on Coulson’s recovery. This was way more than he expected.

Her nails were digging into his hair and there was a neediness to her now, almost a demand that he return the kiss. Reluctantly, he pulled back.

“Simmons,” he croaked, putting just the right amount of apology and hesitation into his tone. His hands were the exact right pressure on her hips, holding her back without really holding her, and the distance between them was enough to let her know this had stop.

Her eyes were shut and her expression was pained. Her hands were fisted tight in the front of his robe. “Please,” she ground out. She took a ragged breath. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

“We’re on the same team,” he started, ready to give her the old good-of-the-team speech.

She opened her eyes. There wasn’t a hint of lust in them, only a strange sort of resignation. He struggled to pinpoint what it meant and, in his confusion, allowed her to step closer.

“And none of them can give me what I need,” she said. “I’m not asking for anything more. Please, Ward. I just need your help. Again,” she added with a lopsided not-smile.

She couldn’t know how many of his buttons she was hitting. He’d been doing this job long enough to know he had a hero kink. He loved saving the day, loved being needed. If this was any normal assignment - the kind he’d be walking away from inside the week - he’d let this happen. And with her standing so close, warm and soft and just the right kind of needy, he was having trouble remembering why the timetable was so damn important.

“Just once,” he said, adding a hint of warning to his tone at the last minute. 

She nodded in agreement. He pulled her against him and that was the end of the discussion.

 

+++++

 

It’s a city. Some ancient, underground city beneath San Juan.

It’s also alien.

Grant’s no scientist, but he’s seen enough alien shit in his life to know the prehistoric city with walkways that light up has gotta have some extraterrestrial influence.

It took him time to get his own coveralls and mask on, but luckily the lights are still lit up in Jemma’s wake. He runs along the path and is panting when he finds her standing outside a massive door with her mask off.

“What,” he gasps between breaths, “the hell?”

“The GH-325,” she says, eyes fixed on the circular room past the door, “it’s alien. It contains the remains of a genetic memory of this place. Exposure carries the risk of developing an overwhelming urge to come here.” She sounds so calm, like she isn’t talking complete nonsense.

“Coulson told you all this?”

Her lips curl up on one side, but she doesn’t answer. Great. Fine. Whatever.

“So that’s it?” He tears his mask off and takes a look around the hall they’re in, trying to see deeper into the shadows in case there’s a threat looming there. “You come back from the dead and then you wanna come here? And once you do, you’re good?”

Again, she doesn’t answer. He’s on the verge of grabbing her and shaking the answers out of her when she asks, “Where do you want to go next?”

It’s so _not_ what he was expecting that the anger washes right out of him.

She turns away from the doorway to face him. “I got to choose this place, so I suppose I owe you.” She tries to smile and, when she fails, steps closer so she can run her hands over his chest. “Anywhere you want. We can do anything at all.”

He catches her hands. “We should get back to the Bus. Get you looked over, make sure this place hasn’t done something to you.”

She stiffens. “And then?” Her voice has gone hard, cold. He wonders what he’s said that’s wrong. Was it all of it? Or just the part about this place?

He runs his hands up and down her arms. “And then they give you a clean bill of health, and we get back to work.”

She turns out of his hold, her focus back on that damn room. “I want to _go_ ,” she says. “You said you’d take me.”

He swallows down his annoyance. Whatever’s going on here, he needs to keep his responses measured or risk sending her over the edge. “And I did. And now it’s time to go back. Don’t you wanna see the others? Fitz? Skye?”

She shakes her head. “Yes.” She turns into him all at once and grabs the front of his coveralls. “But no. I don’t want to go back to them.”

“The team?” he asks, completely confused. She loves the team, loves everyone on it. He once saw her hug _May_ , if that’s not love, he doesn’t know what is.

“The team. SHIELD.” Her grip tightens. “HYDRA.”

He goes cold and utterly still. How can she know? _How can she know?_

Her arms wrap around his neck, pulling her against him. “Garrett has the GH-325. We can go. Leave all of that.”

He feels like he’s drowning. He can’t focus, can’t think. “How do you know?” he manages.

One of her hands slides down over his heart. “An 0-8-4 sent me back in time. Two years. To the moment I woke up in your arms over the Atlantic.”

He closes his eyes, remembering how scared she looked, how much she struggled against him. She changed after the fall. He saw it but he convinced himself it was her brush with death. He was _so sure_ he had her wrapped around his finger.

“Is that why you slept with me?” he asks. “So I wouldn’t suspect you?”

She smiles sadly. “It worked for you with May.”

He laughs. At this completely fucking insane conversation. At the proof she’s just given him that she’s telling the truth - there’s no way she could’ve known that was his plan. At how damn hot it is that she used his own play against him.

“And why bring me here? You gonna kill me, Jemma?” He wraps his hands around her hips, but she doesn’t balk.

“The team was about to be sent on a mission.” Her fingers play at the back of his neck. “The things that were going to happen to you … I couldn’t let it happen again.”

“But you could let yourself be beaten?” he demands, angry suddenly. She goes to all that trouble and then nearly _dies_. And for _what_?

For John, he thinks, his heart leaping into his throat. For him.

His hope dies when she says, “It was Skye, the first time. I was only trying to save her.”

Of course. Of course it wasn’t about him. He doesn’t know what he was thinking. She’s got him so turned around, he needs to focus. “You said something to her before you passed out. Something about me.”

She blinks and her mouth drops open. Even though she’s just admitted to lying to him for all these months, he thinks he might be reading her surprise accurately. “I don’t remember. I’m sorry.”

It could be true. Injuries like that… His hand slides up her side, following the path of the bruises he saw there yesterday. He’s going to kill Peterson. “Why tell me this? I’m the enemy, right? The big bad traitor? Why clue me in?”

Her eyes drop to his chest, where her fingers curl and uncurl gently. “You’re a monster. A murderer. Four days before we slept together in Morocco I was saving the life of a woman - a _friend_ \- who you’d tortured and who you left to watch her lover die.”

He’s been called worse and it’s hurt less than it does coming from her. He might pull away if she weren’t leaning so heavily on him. She’s overdone it and pushing her to answer is probably making her worse. He doesn’t tell her to stop.

“But I remember what it was like to kneel in a pool of your blood. I stitched you up, kept you alive when you tried to die.”

He twitches. He tried to kill himself in her future? That’s a story he’s gonna need to get in full, but he lets her keep going for now.

“I hated you then. And I hated Coulson for ordering me to save you.” She sniffs back tears and meets his eyes. “The things you’d done were unforgivable, but you haven’t done them yet.”

He smiles. “You trying to save me from myself?”

“Yes.”

She says it so simply, so sincerely. He can’t help but want her to succeed.

Her hand slides down his arm, her fingers curling around to just brush the inside of his wrist as she goes. Suicide, she said. She squeezes his hand, and he squeezes right back. She smiles.

“The uprising is in ten days,” she says. “So let’s go.”

He doesn’t even question it. “Where?”

“Anywhere. Somewhere we can ride it out.”

“The others-”

“If we go back, you’ll choose Garrett, and you’ll lose.”

He itches to ask what she means by that, what more than just his freedom and, apparently, his sanity. Instead he says, “And you’ll choose SHIELD.”

She drops his hand to wrap her arm around his waist, tugging him to her. “If we go back, we’ll have already chosen our sides. So let’s run away and choose each other.”

He thinks about Skye. Jemma threw herself into harm’s way to protect her and nearly died for her trouble. And now she’s doing it again.

She called him a monster, accused him of torturing her friend. And yet here she is, in probably the most secluded place on planet Earth, telling him she knows all about his evil schemes. He could kill her for this, take the knowledge she’s given him, and ride out the uprising.

She’s putting her life on the line to save him. There’s no team to swoop in and save her if this goes south. There’s no back up plan he can see. This is it. Just her and him and the faith she has in him.

Maybe he was right, maybe he did have her wrapped around his finger.

He slides a hand into her hair and rests his forehead against hers. “Whoever wins,” he says, “whoever’s still standing when the dust settles, it’s gonna be you and me. Understood?”

She nods, relaxing against him in relief.

“Good.” He keeps a hold around her waist and turns them back the way they came. “Before we head out, anywhere we should avoid?”

She leans her head against his shoulder and sleepily rambles off a list. It’s long, but the world’s a big place. Still plenty of room to hide in.

 


End file.
